{"id":446752,"date":"2026-02-26T13:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T13:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/446752\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T13:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T13:57:10","slug":"borthwick-drafts-in-host-of-england-rwc-winners-to-help-ailing-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/446752\/","title":{"rendered":"Borthwick drafts in host of England RWC winners to help ailing side"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

England<\/a> are to take advice from some of Martin Johnson\u2019s 2003 World Cup winners as they look to rebuild from the ruins of their Guinness Six Nations<\/a> title bid.<\/p>\n

Resounding defeats by Scotland<\/a> and Ireland<\/a> have seen England drop to fourth in the table and they have fixtures against Italy<\/a> and France<\/a> left to emerge from the slump, having entered the tournament with an 11-Test winning run.<\/p>\n

In a blow to preparations for the final fortnight, British and Irish Lions<\/a> scrum-half Alex Mitchell<\/a> has been ruled out by a hamstring injury sustained in the 42-21 mauling at Allianz Stadium last Saturday.<\/p>\n

A pre-planned dinner with nine members of the squad that lifted the World Cup 23 years ago has now taken on greater significance with head coach Steve Borthwick<\/a> instructing his players to mine them for insights.<\/p>\n

Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio<\/a>, Phil Vickery<\/a>, Jason Leonard<\/a>, Ben Kay<\/a>, Richard Hill<\/a>, Lewis Moody<\/a>, Paul Grayson<\/a> and Will Greenwood<\/a> will aim to rally Borthwick\u2019s men at the event on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Italy <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

England <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The dinner has been arranged by positions with Moody, who in October announced he has been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, hosting a table for the back-rows.<\/p>\n

An important topic of conversation will be how Johnson\u2019s England bounced back from their Grand Slam near-misses in 1999, 2000 and 2001 to go on to claim the sport\u2019s greatest prize.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose of this is to learn from their experiences. They had setbacks. They had moments where games didn\u2019t go the way they wanted them to,\u201d Borthwick said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had moments in games in that 2003 World Cup where it wasn\u2019t going the way they wanted it to and they found a way through it. I look forward to those players sharing their experiences with our current players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coaches are going to meet with them first. Then a group of senior players will meet with them. And then we will all have dinner together and have a chance to chat and learn from their experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a number of topics and areas I want them to discuss. What I\u2019m keen to do is let the players explore and discuss with them and share their thoughts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following a review of the Ireland collapse, Borthwick pinpointed the failure to take their chances, a crippling 24 turnovers and a drop off in intensity as the core reasons for possibly the worst performance of his tenure.<\/p>\n

If England are to mount a revival, they must do so without first choice scrum-half Mitchell, who lasted 24 minutes against Ireland and has been ruled out for a \u201cnumber of weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jack van Poortvliet, who replaced Mitchell against Andy Farrell\u2019s side, is favourite to start at scrum-half in Rome with Raffi Quirke<\/a> called up to the squad as a replacement.<\/p>\n

Centre Ollie Lawrence<\/a> is a doubt for the visit to the Stadio Olimpico after receiving a knee injection after making his comeback from the same injury against Ireland.<\/p>\n

Eight players have been released back to their clubs and will be in PREM Cup action this weekend, with George Furbank<\/a> and Chandler Cunningham-South<\/a> in particular having the opportunity to play their way into contention against Italy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England are to take advice from some of Martin Johnson\u2019s 2003 World Cup winners as they look to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-446752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}